


Every Circle is Just a Line, Connected by Design

by Exultation_of_the_Gryphon



Category: Challenge - Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Challenges, Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-22 21:59:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6095333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exultation_of_the_Gryphon/pseuds/Exultation_of_the_Gryphon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Challenge for those looking to write a new sort of soul mate mark fan-fiction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Circle is Just a Line, Connected by Design

**Every circle was a line just connected by design**

 

 

                                         A.Gryphon’s Soul-mate Challenge

Inspired by Paper Routes’ _Paper Hearts_

_So, this is my first challenge. I’d like to see soul mate fics from this idea. I look forward to seeing what people can come up with! I do intend to write my own story based on this sometime. But until then… Take it away!_

_(Please link to this challenge in the parent works section so I can find them, thank you.)_

 

From the moment that the heart starts beating a mark appears on the unborn child. Until the child is born this mark is a faintly glowing line that runs from the belly just above the umbilical cord towards the child’s mother along the chord. Between birth and the time the child begins to babble the line begins to curl out of the belly button in a spiral with the lose end upwards towards the head.

It is suggested that the child’s mother is the child’s soul-mate during this stage of life. Religious belief in the western world indicates that the child’s soul is somehow created from the mother’s and that they are soul-mates as they are literally two parts of the same soul. Nearness of the father’s soul is believed to be the instrument for the beginning of the change to the child developing its own distinct soul.

During this time the line is slightly pink – unremarkable save for the distinct shape and the glow.

Experiments deemed un-ethical and inhumane in this age demonstrate that the child’s line becomes silvery; something like an old scar, nearly instantaneously should the mother die. Should the child die its mark will slowly cease to glow over the course of several hours.

By the time the child is beginning to develop strong likes and dislikes of other people the spiral has moved to form half a circle around the belly button. Superstition claims that the position of the mark around the belly button indicates something of the child’s fortune but science has found no distinct reason for different positions and fortunetelling remains unreliable.

When the growing individual meets their soul-mate the glow increases and flashes golden as their mark completes a circle around the navel. Should the child’s soul mate die their circle connects and flashes softly silver. Religion claims that the deceased’s soul comes to reside within its partner until the living half ceases living.

As a person grows and ages they are driven to explore and travel as much as feasible. In the modern world, where travel is possible and easy for most of the world, many more people find their soul mate than ever before.

Soul-mates are not always the same age. Perhaps 60% of people in the current era have a soul mate with in ten years of their own age. In this case the elder of the two is born with a copper patina colored symbol something like a circle with two extensions, one pink. This one leads away to the mother as with any other child. The other branch intrudes in the circle to a dot most visible on children with an ‘outie’ belly button.

Still, less than a quarter of people find their soul mates today.

Sometimes a child is born with a deceased soul-mate. The symbol that appears is a complete circle with the upward prong to the mother but at the lowest point of the circle, another, smaller circle overlaps the child’s. The mark, save for the pink of the mother’s link, is the color of silver patina.

With the increasing safety and availability of legal abortion, the percentages that actually found their soul mates took a plunge until somewhere in the 1990's where some recovery began, according to survey's taken in the US. Since 1973, somewhere upwards of 58 million babies were born with a deceased soulmate or one that died within a year.  

Overtime a shadow appears along the golden half mark and slowly grows to complete a circle when two non-soul mates come to love each other deeply and manage to assuage the yearning for their other half. These couples are seen as blessed. They have found a truly compatible partner – the beloved shadow - despite not finding their intended and have forged a relationship that can be more amiable than the spontaneous relationship of soul mates.

Myth relates the story of Helen of Troy who had found a true partner in her husband, then later her soul mate in Paris, although sources dispute which was which. History relates the story of Cleopatra, although if Antony or Caesar were her beloved shadow or true intended is lost to time.

The flash of bonding is not merely an event of physical closeness. It has been observed that unconsciousness, drunkenness or drugged states past insensibility, or mental illness will prevent the flash until both individuals are capable of seeing the flash.

Some couples will flash multiple times, should one of the partners lose the memory of their relationship. In patients with mental illnesses this can be both heartbreaking and affirming both in each event. In the worst cases, a cream was developed to rub over the mark so the flashing is not as bright while the mark tries to reveal the bonded state to the forgetful individual.  

 

 

 

Written on 2/23/16. I believe this is an original idea for the soul mate trope and I would love to see it spread.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [God Gives the Talents You Need](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6320065) by [Exultation_of_the_Gryphon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exultation_of_the_Gryphon/pseuds/Exultation_of_the_Gryphon)




End file.
